2024-2025 MBB computer projections thread
- Thread starter Sigmapolis
- Start date
I would love to take 2 out of 3 between @Arizona, @Kansas, and @Houston. I still feel like Houston hasn’t really been tested yet. Lucky for us, they’re playing at Kansas this weekend so we’ll see how legit they look.
I'm looking ahead at the next 4 games
"Land of the Sun Week"
Saturday @ASU
Monday @Arizona
"Wheat vs. Corn week"
Saturday V. KSU
Monday @KU
2-2 is "okay"
3-1 is a "win"
After those 4 games we should 1) get Milan back and 2) have the easiest stretch of our B12 schedule.
"Land of the Sun Week"
Saturday @ASU
Monday @Arizona
"Wheat vs. Corn week"
Saturday V. KSU
Monday @KU
2-2 is "okay"
3-1 is a "win"
After those 4 games we should 1) get Milan back and 2) have the easiest stretch of our B12 schedule.
I think this outcome is realistic.
Torvik thinks this put you at a high risk of dropping to a #3 seed, though...
Illinois and Purdue might steal Milwaukee from you the first weekend, too.
Gonna need to knuckle down and nab a signature win on the road.
3-1 would really really good.
That would feel weird to fall to a 3 seed with a record of 26-5.
The "easier schedule" from here on out compared to Houston sounds fun for the Big 12 race but poses a problem because the Cyclones lack opportunities for sexy Q-1 or even Q-1A road wins.
Iowa State going...
Q1 = 5-5
undefeated below that
...with 26 wins sounds pretty good, right?
Well, here is Auburn's projection...
!!!
The SEC this season is what the Big 12 was like a few years ago in offering up chances for big wins/no bad losses night after night after night. The best Big 12 teams are still some of the best teams in the country, but the bottom of the conference is just so much weaker now. The 20 (!!!) Q-1 games Auburn is projected to play is sucking all the other SEC teams up the table, too, which risks a #2 or #3 for the Cyclones.
...which means the opportunities you do have are all the more precious.
...which means you probably need to get a signature win or two in Tucson, Lawrence, or Houston.
Ain't gonna be easy. But that's what a team deserving of a #1 seed would do.
It's realistic, but not a very likely outcome based on Torviks numbers. We have almost double the chance of winning 2 or 3 of those games as we do losing all 3. Of course we will probably drop a game we shouldn't along the way too. Bottom line, odds are good we will get that signature road win.
I'm just going to assume undefeated at home again. Yeah yeah something could go disastrously wrong during one of these games, but frankly there aren't many challenges left in Hilton.
We don't really have many road games left...
Arizona St.
Arizona
Kansas
UCF
Houston
Oklahoma St.
Kansas St.
If we think we're remotely contenders for a #1 seed then these are gimmes...
UCF
Oklahoma St.
Kansas St.
We drop one of those and it is a big red spot on the CV.
These would obviously be "signature" but are against some elite teams...
(Torvik rankings)
#9 Arizona
#10 Kansas
#2 Houston
Yikes.
Arizona St. is really the only "swing" game and only sort of. Torvik has that one as a 76% win expectation, so it is borderline to rank in the same category as the de facto cupcakes.
There actually isn't a lot of elasticity left in the schedule outside of pulling some big upsets on some legendary home courts against some teams in the top ten in efficiency metrics.
The next four will be really big. If they can find a way to go 3-1 through that stretch, the next stretch looks like 4-0. That would put them at 23-3, 13-2 in the conference.
Thanks so much for the continued insight! Really interesting.
This is the first I’ve seen of a fear of us dropping to a 3 seed. Historically, how accurate is Torvik in seeding predictions? How accurate were they last year?
Somebody might know of a more systematic analysis than this narrow one.
But last year...
It nailed 16/16 of the top 16.
4/4 #1
4/4 #2
3/4 on #3 and #4
Had Duke and Kentucky flipped. That slipup was the only miss.
It gets kind of wonky after the top 16 as you can imagine... lots of teams muddled together.
At the top of the bracket, though, Torvik tends to be very close. If it says we're trending towards a #3 seed without some big road wins, then we should probably take that notion very seriously.
These big road games aren't going to be "meh good loss" like they might have been in the classic Big 12 of ten from yore. They're going to be games you need to win to land that #1 seed.
I do think Arizona St is huge as a swing game. Just looking at odds of number of wins against those 3 elite road games, again using Torviks numbers, we are looking at:
0 wins = 20%
1 win = 43%
2 wins = 30%
3 wins = 6%
You say it would be big upsets, but Torvik has @KU and @Arizona as tossups essentially. It would be pretty dissapointing if we don't manage at least one win out of those games.
I thought Arizona was struggling this season compared to expectations. I looked up their schedule and they really don't have that "big" win yet. Then I looked at their conference schedule: they face ISU, Kansas, and Houston one time each, with 2 of those at home. And they haven't played any of them yet.
So I really don't know what to make of Arizona yet. I know the computers like them, but nothing from the final scores/opponents really demonstrates how good they may be.
@Sigmapolis - could you elaborate why the computers think highly of Arizona?
So I really don't know what to make of Arizona yet. I know the computers like them, but nothing from the final scores/opponents really demonstrates how good they may be.
@Sigmapolis - could you elaborate why the computers think highly of Arizona?
I know I'm a big proponent of the analytics and "what do the numbers say" over the "eye test" and how things feel. But I'm not a hardhearted man. Not everything comes down to the math.
Taking any game from a top-ten team on a home court like the McKale Center, Phog Allen, or the Fertitta Center is a big win and a big upset. The good news is the Torvik and KenPom computers think Iowa St. is good enough to pick off one or two of those games. And we need to prove we're that good if we want that #1 seed at good sites with a clear pathway to making a run into the third weekend of the tournament.
None of those games are "no ******* way" games but we won't be favored in any of them.
Their losses are (using the Torvik rankings here)...
on the road at #16 Wisconsin
home to #3 Duke
neutral to #50 Oklahoma (only a five-point loss but probably their worst game)
neutral in OT to #22 West Virginia (didn't we just lose to them? WVU is good)
neutral to #28 UCLA
on the road at #12 Texas Tech (a very difficult home court and a very good Raiders team)
They've played a lot of good teams and played them well. Their losses were always to good teams by small margins (save Oklahoma) and they only have one home loss... to a #1 seed Duke.
Arizona loaded up their schedule with tough matchups and peers. They played those teams tough and won many of those games and even their losses are generally not "bad losses." They took some lumps in the loss column, but it seems to have worked. The team has gelled together well, and now they're 6-1 in the Big 12 and I'm sure they have the date on Monday with the Cyclones circled twice for their signature win.
Looks like they only ended up playing four Q4 punching bags...
Canisius
Old Dominion
Southern Utah
Central Michigan
Plus Q3 bad teams = Davidson and Samford
I'd love it if Iowa St. would take a similar approach. Every time a Jackson St. falls off the schedule for a conference-to-conference challenge (and sadly the B12/BE one seems to be gone) or for a bespoke home-and-home or neutral-site series (Creighton please please please) I feel giddy inside. I think having a few Q4 games as de facto preseason games is fine, but I would much rather the schedule be full of interesting matchups with good teams. The computers and quadrants reward such schedules, too, like it seems to be doing with Arizona.
